Hello there! For some background, I have owned and played Space Hulk since its re-release. It is from that experience which is why AVP has naturally come into my possession. I have only played twice now, both were enjoyable experiences. the models went together well, although the first set I built for our hobby store one of the marines arms was thick and round and could not fit into the shoulder socket without some work. For my set, I got a duplicate cardboard section with hibernation room and engine room. Currently waiting for an email response from the customer service.

To start off, there are a bunch of pros for the game. The pristine models will be quite fun to work on. The rules were an easy read, with plenty of examples to fallow. I like that there are other ways of playing, which allows for future replay-ability which Space Hulk lacks. I enjoy the way actions work, and even though it seems to be a debate here as to how impact-full the cards are, I enjoy the freshness it brings to the game. The maps are well thought out, some times I think the objectives might be a little hard depending on the set up but that is fine.

There were a few things I was not super thrilled about. The movement is tiles, which works but it does make the Aliens job pretty difficult. One of the things that made the Genestealers powerful was how much faster they were than the terminators. Between the slow movement, and inability for aliens to come from anywhere like the movies, it seems the Aliens have to sit back for the most part because they cannot close the gap. You could argue that in Space Hulk the genestelers had to do a similar thing, but they could rush a corridor with success because of their movement. In our games running up a corridor was certain suicide between not being able to make it, and the power of the flame thrower.

Another issue I had with the game is that there is no pressure at all to complete objectives. In space hulk you had limited ammunition and the fear of being overwhelmed by infinite genestelers. I am going to play around with limited ammo and turn limits to try and keep the game moving.

This transitions into another point. I believe the game could really benefit with using the 1, 2, 3 blips. It really feels useless to have blips for Aliens. Tile occupation gives away what could be over there if you use the bigger models. Realistically, you can guess with the starter set that if you see 8 blips, most of them are just the infants. The blip system for Space hulk really had you guessing, because two blips could either be a feint with two stelers, or a scary attack of 6. On the same note of blips, I am going to play around with having aliens enter play like in space hulk. The hope is that they will not start out overwhelming but will passively force the predators and marines to do their objectives.

In the case that does not work out, I am going to try having aliens not be seen on the board, and just have them written down where they go until spotted for the first time. Aliens already have the skill to go back to a ping token, not that it does much. Really I think something has to be done to make the Aliens scary, because right now their inability to close gaps really hampers them.

On to my questions. I looked into the advanced rules to try and play around with playing 1v1 in case we do not have a third. After looking at the points system, the campaign missions play out mostly balanced but how do the points reflect it? 10 pts for a marine, and all the upgrades is 50 pts against 4 infant aliens? how is that fair? I looked at the hero section for weapon points and it comes out to be 150 which makes a lot more sense. Even so, using that gives the marines 150, predators 185, and aliens 195. Is this correct? In the event of a 1v1 scenario and paying for the sergeant for the marines, it would be the 5 marines vs either of the aliens or the predators. From the two games, I really think the predators against either faction would be a no question easy win. What are others thoughts on this?

My next question is that the level system, do the re-rolls apply for that model? or for any of them?

I was confused too at first Pay more attention to chapter 10.1.1 Marine Force List. Marines fight in so called battle groups - every battle group HAS TO have at least 2 squads ( thats the minimum as you dont have to have a HQ according to the rulebook) Every troop type squad has from 5 to 8 models, only one squad can be of level 2 and above. So let get the calculator out 2 squads, 5 marines each, both on first level = 100 pts, But one squad can be more experienced (up to 4th lvl), the cost is 10pts per model +10 pts for every lvl. So a fully advanced squad of 5 marines(lvl 4) = 250 pts. Only one squad can have higher lvl so the other one is still 50 - so 250 + 50 = 300pts - most basic amount suggested by the rulebook. Hope it helped. And about your question - experience is tracked by the squad, so the 4 lvl squad would have 2 re-rolls per turn which may be used by any model from the squad.

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